Dispositional Explanations

• Dispositional explanation


  Any explanation of behaviour that highlights the importance of the individual's personality
• Authoritarian Personality


  • Submissive and have extreme respect for authority

  • Believe we need strong powerful leaders to enforce traditional values

  • More likley to obey from authority

  • Dismissive to inferiors

  • Inflexible outlook of the world 'right or wrong
• Origins of the authoritarian personality


  • Forms in childhood

  • Result of harsh parenting such as strict discipline, high standards and severe criticisms of perceived failings

  • Creates resentment in a child

  • Their fears are displaced on to others who they see as inferior - scapegoating
• Adorno's Research


  Procedure

  • He studied over 2000 middle class white Americans

  • Studied their unconscious attitudes to other ethnic groups

  • He developed multiple scales to test this including the F scale

  
  

  Findings

  • Those who scored high on the F scale identified with strong people and were contemptuous of the weak

  • Conscience of status and showed respect to those of higher status.

  • Had a cognitive style that was very black and white and had fixed stereotypes about others

  • Strong positive correlation between authoritarianism and prejudice
• AO3 Dispositional Explanation

  Strength

  P - evidence from Milgram supporting Authoritarian Personality

  E - Milgram interviewed 20 people who were in his study and were fully obedient. He asked them to take the F - Scale test. They scored a lot higher overall than a group of 20 people who were disobedient

  C - This supports Adorno's view that obedient people shown similar characteristics to those with an authoritarian personality

  Weakness

  P – Lack of research support

  E – The F scale has been criticized as having a response bias. This means those responding are likely to be rated highly on the F scale

  C – The validity of this theory has therefore been questioned